‘Adventure dentist’ Bart Roach brings dental help to far-flung locales

Bart Roach sat in front of a computer in his Kennewick office, clicking through photos of his travels to various far-flung locales.

In one shot, he’s in the highlands of Guatemala.

In another, he’s on the water in northwestern Cambodia.

“Adventure dentist,” he said with a laugh as he scrolled.

It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but it’s actually a pretty perfect description.

Roach, 31, owner of Three Rivers Dental, travels the world using his skills to help people with little or no access to dental care.

And he’s always up for a little fun along the way.

He’s tasted everything from frog to silk worm and dung beetle.

He’s taken in the picturesque Lake Atitlán and stood in awe at the breathtaking Angkor Wat.

And he’s about to add another adventure to the list. He’s headed this month to the Ladakh region of India on a trip with the nonprofit Global Dental Relief.

Roach shrugs off praise for the good works, saying it gives him an excuse to see more of the world.

But Greg Frodel, a longtime Pasco dentist and mentor, said Roach has a deep dedication to helping others.

“Each of us have our own skill sets and talents. Bart has taken his and applied them in the community and on a world scale,” Frodel said. “He’s incredibly committed to the profession, he’s committed to his community, he’s committed to people. That’s the strongest statement you can make about someone — he cares about people deep to the soul.”

For Roach, travel is a passion — one that was sparked when he was a teenager on a trip to South America.

And as part of the sprawling Roach clan of Pasco, service is practically part of his DNA. Bart’s the fifth of Dr. John Michael and Nancy Roach’s seven kids.

Along with his trips through Global Dental Relief, Bart started his own nonprofit with the mission of delivering dental care and oral hygiene education to people in Guatemala, a country he first visited about a decade ago. His mother is co-founder of the organization, called Sonrisa Immaculata, or “immaculate smile” in Spanish.

On his dental trips, he helps perform hundreds of fillings, extractions and sealants, and also provides hygiene education.

Some patients get especially close to his heart. On a recent trip to Guatemala, he treated a teenage girl with teeth so bad she needed several pulled.

He wrote of her situation on Facebook and friends back home pitched in to cover the cost of partial dentures.

Roach doesn’t limit his charitable work to overseas. He also regularly volunteers at Grace Clinic in Kennewick, which is the Tri-Cities’ only free clinic for the uninsured.

Roach said he’s been blessed in life, and with that comes responsibility.

“You have an obligation to give back to your community and your global community,” he said.

Roach attended Carroll College in Montana as an undergraduate, then went on to dental school at Creighton University in Nebraska, graduating in 2011.

He helped run a free clinic while in school and worked for a year in south Omaha before returning to the Tri-Cities.

Roach was part of Tri-Cities Prep’s first graduating class. When he was 16, before his junior year at the Catholic school, he and a classmate accompanied Father Tom Bunnell on a trip to Peru. In between catching waves at Mancora and exploring the famed Lake Titicaca, Roach decided he wanted to see even more of the world.

He’s been to more than 25 countries since, from Switzerland to Malaysia to Brazil, with tales of everything from learning to scuba dive to helping run a hostel.

The fluent Spanish speaker has taken multiple trips to Guatemala to provide dental care. He traveled to Siem Reap, Cambodia, with Global Dental Relief last year.

The walls of his Kennewick practice are decorated with photos and mementos of the trips.

Paintings by Guatemalan artists. A framed huipil, or colorful blouse worn by indigenous women in Central America. Photos of kids he worked with in Cambodia.

Roach, who isn’t married and doesn’t yet have kids, sees visiting other countries and getting a taste of other cultures as enriching and enlightening. “As a student of the world, your perspective changes. You don’t get to hold strong opinions about things because you’ve seen too many beautiful people who live in a completely different (way),” he said.

You take in the colors, the smells, the food. You experience the wonder, the adventure. And you’re never the same.

“A lot of people feel like (travel) is not even in the realm of possibility for them. But you can do it. You don’t have to be afraid,” he said.

And there’s so much to see.

To learn more about or donate to Sonrisa Immaculata, go to www.sonrisaimmaculata.org. Three Rivers Dental also is on Facebook.

Watch for updates on Roach’s trip to India on the Tri-City Herald website.

This story was originally published August 15, 2015 at 10:36 PM with the headline "‘Adventure dentist’ Bart Roach brings dental help to far-flung locales."